


On Impact

by ninhursag



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst, Bad BDSM Etiquette, Beating, Blood and Injury, Canon Bisexual Character, Consensual But Not Safe Or Sane, Dementia, Emotional Hurt, Everyone Needs Therapy, F/M, Femdom, Grief/Mourning, Impact Play, Masochism, Oral Sex, Porn with Feelings, Power Play
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:15:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22953190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninhursag/pseuds/ninhursag
Summary: The world is pressing so hard on Maria, she's drowning. When Michael suggests an outlet, she doesn't ask any questions, even the ones she really should.**"Don't tell me to take a boxing class, Guerin. Punching bags don’t change a thing."His eyebrows lift up and he shakes his head. Loose, loose, the gold of his curls. All invitation. "Nah," he murmurs. He siddles over, careful, minding her space. Looking her over like he's gauging every reaction. "You don't need a punching bag, DeLuca. You got me."
Relationships: (past/suggested future) Michael Guerin/Alex Manes, Maria DeLuca & Alex Manes, Maria DeLuca/Michael Guerin, Michael Guerin & Alex Manes
Comments: 31
Kudos: 55





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is primarily a DeLuca/Guerin fic and I'm really interested in their dynamic. But at the end of the day, I'm a Malex shipper. That will become obvious in part two. That doesn't mean I don't like Maria, I really do.
> 
> If you stop at the end of part one you get a sort of happy/ambivalent ending...
> 
> Warnings: the first part contains very unsafe practices. The second part is where it becomes crystal clear why you don't use those practices.

Sometimes, the world feels like its own weight, pressing the air out of Maria's lungs. It drags at her when she’s looking over the books at the Wild Pony, just her and her part time bookkeeper in the back room. Payroll, liquor license compliance, health code. Paper eats her up, covers her up, she dreams of it.

Sometimes, she dreams about Michael Guerin, the river and grease smell of him, sharp stubble on her skin. Strong hands, even the broken one. The one that used to be broken.

Then there’s more paper. Durable Power of Attorney for finances. Durable Power of Attorney for health care. Can you sign your mother’s name to this contract? Will you agree to be the guarantor? Let’s talk about Medicaid, about social security, Maria, ok? How about the financial verifications, can you pay this bill? The arbitration clause is going to apply here.

Paper drowns out her mother. Her mother, at Sunset Mesa, the youngest one there, smiling among the wheelchair bound, the staring, the vague, the screaming, pissing and shitting. Her mother, who smiles and smiles and smiles at her and says, “look at you, your hair looks so nice, Maria. Will Smith thought your new weave really set off the color of your eyes, sweetheart.”

Sunset Mesa is painted in cheerful colors, with pretty tile floors. The floors work for easy cleaning when the residents piss themselves through their diapers, which happens often. 

Her mother says, “you’re such a pretty girl. Do you know my daughter? I hope she grows up to look just like you.”

It could be so much worse than this. She sees a dark haired woman in her forties cowering and flinching as a bird thin old lady with a walker screams and screams and screams at her, “Whore, whore, who the fuck are you? You’re not my daughter, you’re a cunt, whore, bitch who locked me in here! Where is my daughter? Where is she?” No one looks, everyone looks away, even Maria. 

Dreaming of Michael Guerin with his sunset, honey whiskey eyes is better than Sunset Mesa. It costs her, but so does everything else. There is no paper in it, no screaming, no credit cards or lawyers or SSDI paperwork and spend-downs, look-backs, trusts, payroll, taxes. No, ‘I’m lost, bring me home, bring me home, please’.

Michael is such a long way from home but he’s not looking for Maria to take him back there. Maria is no one’s way home, not anymore. And that's fine. That's fine.

And then there's Alex who gives her a hard look, just once, when he catches her in her backroom going over Excel spreadsheets, and says, calmly and slowly, like every word has been practiced a dozen times before he says it, "I get it. I blew my chance with Michael and he... I get it. Just don't… can you be careful of him?"

She looks away. Maria is careful of paperwork these days, not people. Michael Guerin can be his own damn savior.

She says, "as careful as he wants me to be." Alex's mouth tightens when she looks back at him and he stares down at his hands. They're clenched.

A friendship blown, drowned out in paper and Michael Guerin's dirty, curly hair, handsome face and a smile with a pull like gravity. 

She goes back to her books when Alex leaves. It's not like he would have stayed if she answered different. Alex’s life is the air force and combat and fucking-- fucking aliens. No one stays for Sunset Mesa and health code inspections.

Maybe Michael will? She doesn't think about the fact it might be her who won't stay, in the end.

* 

‘Can you be careful of him?’ Alex had asked her. Alex never asked for much. 

He always tried his best, like Maria used to before. They were the same like that, even if the reasons were different. Both of them knew to never ask, to give out instead so that the ledger was well balanced if you ever needed to call a favor back. They used to be the same like that. That used to be one of the things that made them friends. 

She isn't careful, Michael wants the opposite of that.

*

He catches her when she's coming upstairs after visiting her mom’s lawyer, bone numb in the afternoon sun.

Michael has a faint enigmatic smile when he looks Maria up and down like he likes everything he sees. Mouth curled a little to the left, but not sneering. Eyes all golden where the sun hits him, shoulders loose and easy.

"I know that look," he says, soft, with more gentleness in it than Maria knows what to do with right then. "You look like a woman who wants to hit something."

She can't help the startled laugh. Yeah, her fists are clenched, knuckles tight. Uneasy. "Yeah," she concedes. Then, "don't tell me to take a boxing class, Guerin. Punching bags don’t change a thing."

His eyebrows lift up and he shakes his head. Loose, loose, the gold of his curls. All invitation. "Nah," he murmurs. He siddles over, careful, minding her space. Looking her over like he's gauging every reaction. "You don't need a punching bag, DeLuca. You got me."

She opens her mouth, frowning, head shaking and then he--

Casual as anything, he undoes his belt, big buckle easy in his hands and slides it out of his jeans. It makes a noise coming free. She doesn't have a chance to say anything, not a word before he lays it out. Gentle, pressing the leather into her open palms.

"I think," he says, not too loud, but not a whisper either. "You'd like that."

She swallows. Her fingers close, tight over the buckle. It bites into the thin skin there. She opens her mouth to say no way, no how, what the hell, Guerin.

Instead, she says, "I've never done anything like that before."

He grins at her, genuine, white teeth flashing. Tension she didn't even realize he was holding easing out of his bones. She'd thought he was loose before, but now…

"It's ok, I'll make it real easy for you," he says. She swallows again. Nods. 

“Should we… how do we…” she starts, because she’s not naive, she’s heard about the Country Club set, the games they play, she’s been online. She knows these things have rules, right? Safe words and… things like that?

He rolls his eyes, “it’s not hard. Come on. Didn’t your mama ever give you your licks when you were a nasty kid?”

Her mouth tightens and her fist closes around the belt. The leather bites again. The buckle feels so sharp. “Are you accusing Mama DeLuca of hitting a kid? She never did. She never would have allowed it.”

That catches him out and he goes soft again. “I’m sorry,” he says, gone whisper gentle. “That was out of line. You were a good kid.”

That pushes the venom right out of her and there’s not much else holding her up. “Guerin, I was a nasty kid, just like you said, just like every kid. She was just… she was a wonderful mom. She is a wonderful mom.”

Sometimes, Maria thinks it would be easier if it really was “was”. A gravestone and a memory, no more paper, paper, paper. The nurses at Sunset Mesa say everyone thinks that, but those are the everyone’s whose mothers scream and shit. Maria-- Maria should burn for thinking that way. 

Michael, he just swallows and nods his head. She has absolutely no idea what he’s thinking, that’s actually one of her favorite parts about him. He’s so damn loud that he may as well be silent. He’s thinking something, though.

They finish going upstairs and he mixes her a drink. It’s nice, leaving off the bartender role, he’s good about it. 

She lays his belt over her lap while she’s drinking. His jeans ride down without it holding them up, giving her a glance of nice, warm skin. Soft over muscle. The bones of his hips. He catches her looking and grins, smug about it. 

They meet each other's eyes for the long moment where the smiles stretch out. He's looking too, drinking her in, the length of her peasant skirt and soft, layered top. He loves it when he can just lift her skirt, just rub his thumb over the cotton edge of her underwear, slow and careful, touching and touching and touching while the fabric gets wetter and wetter and she's half way to yelling at him to strip it off and put his mouth on her.

He licks his lips like he's thinking about that too, how much he likes to taste her and taste her. How he says, "Maria, lemme," and goes for it, tongue swiping around the edges of flesh, hands pressed down, until she's throbbing. 

How he presses down on her clit before sucking it in, until she's screaming oversensitive, trying desperately to shove him away with her hands while she pulls him in with her heels, both at the same time, and hisses, "more, more, more."

The benefit of being a black woman right there and then is that he never gets to see her blush even when his regard heats up her skin. Maybe he can feel it anyway, but she can pretend it's her secret.

He flushes shamelessly and smiles at her.

"You want me to make you come first," he asks her now, maybe tells her, his mouth red and smiling. "I dunno. You might like me too much to hit me then."

She rolls that thought over in her mind. Maybe, if that's true she shouldn't--

And then he strips off his shirt, in one easy practiced motion. Sexy and knowing all at once and murmurs, "come on, think about the paperwork, Maria. Think about that asshole neurologist in Santa Fe who said she was faking it. Think about the fucking--"

She shoves him, lightly, and he laughs out loud, satisfied again. He strips off his jeans too, boxers still in them, leaving them in a neat little pile on her floor.

His dick isn't hard, she notices, just there, when normally they'd be on each other kissing and his whole body would be moving toward her. 

He grins anyway, so sure of himself.

She's the one who isn't sure how to-- she stares at the belt, suddenly embarrassed, and then back at his smirking face. "How do I--"

This time he actually laughs at her, eyes rolling, "holy shit, Maria, hold onto the leather, wrap it around your hand and swing with the buckle, you're not an idiot."

She frowns. The buckle looks really big, sharp. "Are you sure?"

His mouth twists, "what, you think I can't take it from a little girl? Sweetheart, you can't hurt me, not really."

He sounds so factual about that.

He strides over to the wall, in her warm, sunlit kitchen and stands against it, palms flat. Body loose. The length of his bare back is smooth in the light, the curve of his ass, and he turns back to look at her and winks. "Think of it as your own personal frustration room."

She holds the buckle end instead, the first time, takes a deep breath, and swings. The whistle and smack of leather on flesh almost makes her jump.

There's a red mark on the taut skin of his ass, but it doesn't hold but for a moment.

Michael turns around, eyes narrowed. "Come on, DeLuca, you trying to kiss me with that? Do I need to find someone with some upper body strength?"

"Oh, fuck you," she mutters. And swings, again, harder this time. Whistle, whack. The thin tip of the belt impacts first, on the small of his back, and Michael-- his whole body, there's an almost flinch before he goes so loose, so loose, like he might melt into the wall.

She stands there, shivering. Her arms feel electric, her skin, her fingers. This time the mark of the belt doesn't fade. He's just-- she has the buckle in her hand, so sharp it bites her.

"Again, come on," he hisses, turning back to glare at her over his shoulder. "I'm getting bored over here, waiting for you to fuck me."

And that makes her think about fucking him, sinking her fingers or a toy into him, the smooth muscle and skin of his ass still holding the marks of a belt on it, and yeah. Yeah. She's maybe gonna do that. He wants that.

She thinks about other people, men, fuck it, Alex, who have had him deep, had him, and that she's gonna have that too. Be that powerful. Gonna make him take it and take and take--

She grins herself, vicious, with teeth in it. She swings. Whack, across his ass.

This time he doesn't say anything, just a ragged, shuddering gasp of breath while his hands curl against the wall, just for a moment, and then flatten again.

And again.

And again.

And he's so still now, just sucking in air between blows, his back and ass all marked up with stripes. Welting up, she wants to touch him, would he flinch if-- fuck.

He turns to look at her, panting, there's blood on his mouth, his lip, torn up, bitten through, and his eyes are wild, rolling, all whites.

"Come on," he hisses. "Come on, that's all you got? I'm not even bleeding, DeLuca."

He is though.

His mouth, there's blood on it, like someone punched him. Like the wrong end of a bar fight and she's seen this a hundred times with him over a decade. He goes and he goes and he goes until the cops show up and drag him away, sometimes still fighting.

She's never been able to get him to stop.

And she swings again, while he's looking her right in the eye and she sees the impact, the expression on his face, the way his eyes glaze over and go still, like he's just gone.

After, when her arm gets tired and she calls it, he spits at her, glazed and punch drunk and hungry, "next time, use the buckle."

Then he walks over, unsteady on his feet like he's drunk and, kisses her gently, a press of lips to the back of her neck like a benediction. She can feel the satisfied curve of his smile and she relaxes into it, warm herself, bone deep. She can smell the blood on him.

He goes down on his knees for her after, bloody mouthed and naked and marked up, ready to worship between her thighs. He flinches just as pretty as she imagined he would when she brushes her nails down over the welts while she grinds herself down on his ardent tongue.

After, he lays his head on her knee, just resting it there, gasping. His face is wet, blood and tears and her smeared all over him, his curls are matted and sweaty. She strokes her fingers through the tangle of them, as gentle as she knows how, like she’s petting a bird’s wing.

“Thanks,” he mumbles, yawning into her hand. His body is as still as she’s ever seen him, lax and open, while her thighs are still trembling.

She laughs. “I should thank you.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As promised, it all gets worse. 
> 
> And then enter Alex Manes. And then it gets worse.
> 
> All the same, I would call it a hopeful ending.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: total lack of safeguards and communication = impact play that leads to serious injuries. Dom drop, sub drop, panic attacks, the works.

The next time it's less serious, the long line of his ass available on his hands and knees while she spanks him with the palm of her hand. Steady cracks of skin on skin until he's red and grinning. It gets her so hot, the bright shape of her hand on his body. She's squirming and wet by the time they're done and that makes him lick his lips, all hungry.

They giggle about it afterwards, under the covers and it feels safe. She's only pissed because she falls asleep with her hair all mussed and needs to deal with it in the morning and it's so nice, so damn nice, to only be worried about that for that space of time.

*

And then it happens again. He’s tense as a bowstring, hands squeezing up and down, eyes everywhere. 

Something is going on, with the alien stuff. The stuff he’ll talk to her about if she asks, pushes at it, but she can tell it’s not-- he doesn’t want to. 

“I crash-landed on this planet as a kid and hatched out of a pod, and that’s pretty much all I know. Isn’t that enough of a story for you?” Michael mutters. His curls spill over his eyes and he doesn’t really look at her. Like he used to when he wanted to put one over on her and not in that blatant way like when he helped himself to the good booze from behind the bar in full view of her. 

"I'm not allowed to ask about you?" She says in return, trying not to be mad over it. Hard when you have all the lies and confusion, but she just-- yeah. "You know everything about me. You listen to my problems."

He shrugs his shoulders. "I don't wanna talk about it. You do. Why is that bad? It's not… it's not a secret."

"You know everything about me," she repeats, quietly.

His mouth twists and he raises his chin. "You know a lot more about me than you think, DeLuca."

"What, that you like it when a girl with a belt makes you cry?" she mutters. He laughs then, surprised.

"Sure, yeah." Then he frowns at her, all thoughtful. She's been around him enough now to know that the tension in his body can look just like this when the jitters and twitching stops-- loose empty hands and careful eyes taking in everything. "Would you? Please?"

"Make you cry?" she asks, even though she knows what he means. 

"Please," he repeats. "Today was, um, hard. I just-- do you need me to, um, ask different-- I--" she stops him then.

"No, I will," she whispers.

He puts himself over her kitchen table this time. Bare and spread out, all the vulnerability of someone that much bigger than her, that much stronger, and still held open. Just his body alone, work hardened muscle, big hands, without, without anything else he can do.

It's intimate as hell in it's own way, a headrush like she could do anything and he'd follow her. Allow it all and more.

He's already bruised and she doesn't know why, maybe a fight? She almost asks, but he's so far past saying much, all that comes out of his mouth are taunts when he's like this--

"Come on, DeLuca, you think I can't find someone else who can actually do this?"

"Hey, was that supposed to tickle, what the fuck?"

Two hits of the tail of the belt and then he's silent, silent, shuddering, smooth muscle moving under skin. Three, four, she finds a rhythm. It feels, it feels, it feels.

Then he begs again, still hands clenched over his head, holding onto the table end.

"Please, just, I need it to be. Do the buckle."

He looks at her, over his shoulder, eyes all pupil and lips parted like he's starving.

She's not-- she's not really-- she can't refuse his eyes when he-- 

The first hit makes him flinch, gasping for air, hands clutching at wood and he hisses, "again, again, Maria."

Again ok ok ok. There's the sound of blood rushing in her head.

His skin breaks under the force of metal and he makes sounds, wet, hungry, she can't really hear him anymore, that blood's now rushing in her ears, so loud, so far gone, she's never--

He screams. She thinks.

Maybe not?

The table holds his body up and she doesn't, she doesn't stop, she doesn't, she's gone, she isn't even there, just the swing and the swing and the…

And then he's slumped down, on the ground and there's blood, there's blood, there's a lot of-- she can't.

What did she do? What did she-- suddenly she's back in her body and it's so cold, she's so cold, there's blood on Michael's shoulders, his ass, over old and new and greening bruises and his eyes are rolled back in his head, not focused.

"Guerin. Michael, Michael, Michael," she touches his face. He's bitten through his lip again, there's blood, the skin is warm.

Is this-- this can't be real? This isn't happening? She didn't just--

He makes a soft, whimpering sound and ducks away from her hands.

She finds her phone where she left it on the counter. Fumbles to unlock it. Her hands are shaking so hard.

"Alex," she says into the speaker, and her voice doesn't crack, though she doesn’t know how she makes that happen. There's blood all over her hands, "I need help. There's so much blood, I, I didn't." She says other things then she thinks. Maybe she explains, but she doesn't remember what.

He makes a noise on the other end of the line.

She closes her eyes and pictures Alex's face, the way he looks when he’s angry, eyes dark, eyebrows straight, but he says, "Yeah," firm and factual. “Are you at home? I will be there in twenty. Ok?”

It is a relief, the first one she’s had in so long.

“Ok,” she says and she does break then, into a sob. "I am at home."

There’s a pause. "Do you need me to stay on the line while I’m driving?”

She shakes her head, as if he could see her. “No, not me, I'm fine, I need to-- Michael. First aid kit and-- maybe stitches. He. He asked me, he wanted. I'm so sorry. Should I-- Kyle Valenti--”

There’s a rattling breath on the other end. Sucked in. “Boil some thread and a needle,” he says. “A really small thin one, the smallest you have. Can you do that? I’ll be there in fifteen.”

"What?" she gasps. 

"No one needs to know about this. I'll-- you just hang on, ok? Breathe with me. Ok?"

"Ok," she says, and breathes. In and out. Out and in. Like Alex is. Her pulse is still jumping but she can see a little better through the haze.

"Great. You're doing great. Can you go to the kitchen? Thread and needle. I've got hydrogen peroxide in my car and sterile bandages but I'm not sure I've got sutures."

She nods, again like he can hear her do it, but she's on her feet, doing what he's asked. She's already in the kitchen so that's a good start. Her sewing kit is in the junk drawer, all her needles lined up and pretty. For fabric.

What the hell. What the hell.

Alex is there about the time the water starts boiling. Michael's awake by then-- sort of-- sitting on the floor looking dazed. That's good she decides. She should probably do something or say something?

But then Alex comes upstairs. Right, he knows where the key is, he doesn't need to ring the bell. He's dressed in sweats and a hoodie, like he just grabbed the first thing he saw, dark hair an artless mess.

Michael from his spot on the floor breathes out, "Alex," all soft and dreamy and half smiles. "Hey. Where'd you come from?"

Alex's expression, which had been tight and steady, goes stricken, just for a moment. "Hey?" He repeats blankly. "What the hell, Guerin?" His gaze flips back to Maria, who really wants to hide in a corner and throw up. 

Alex's face is-- she can see the exact second that everything slams closed as he steps up and gets a good look at Michael's back.

He frowns and goes completely still and a little green, like he's the one who wants to throw up. Just for a moment before blanking into complete calm. He touches gently, carefully.

"You're right, Maria, we are going to need stitches," he says, in a steady voice. "Guerin, this is going to hurt cleaning out. Don't worry about making noise, ok? I'm going to turn on the white noise on my phone but there's no one else around."

Michael blinks at him and shakes his head. "S'ok, sweetheart," he mumbles. "I'm fine." Then he frowns at Maria. "DeLuca, he shouldn't be here. What did you do?"

Alex laughs at that, expression still blank. "Little late."

Michael's face twists at a stray touch, Alex's hand on a shoulder, "I'm not… this isn't your problem, you shouldn't have to-- she shouldn't be bothering you. I'm fine." 

"Yeah, ok," Alex says as he's opening up a terrifying looking first aid kit. Maria puts her head between her knees and doesn't look.

Alex turns on the white noise like he said he would and it muffles just enough.

Michael doesn't scream. He breathes, wet and ragged, hissing out. Alex murmurs something to him and Michael says something back.

The whispered words are just background noise. Mostly Michael, half angry, half apologetic, she can't hear much but tone over static, but she can smell the disinfectant, not so different from the one they use at Sunset Mesa, invading her home. Thick and choking.

A few words are sharp enough to hear over the app, "this isn't fair, I didn't want to do this to you, you don't deserve- don't think I don't know this hurts you."

And Alex's incredulous, "so you do it to Maria? What you didn't think--"

"She-- I didn't know that it would bother her, she--"

I didn't know it would bother her, and she covers her ears with her hands to block out even snatches and thinks about what it had felt like, belt in her hand, in the rhythm, him spread out in front of her because he wanted to be. An offering to her anger and frustration and grief, barely a person at all. And how she'd gone on and on and on and never even thought.

She maybe cries.

At some point, very soon after, Alex is half way down next to her, bent over as much as his leg let's him, pressing something into her hands she thinks. It's a cup, damp with condensation. She puts it to her lips and it's orange juice. Cold and sweet on her tongue.

"Drink it," Alex says and she does, swallowing it down painful fast. She almost chokes when it goes down wrong, spitting, sputtering, gagging. Alex is right there, big hands on her back, rubbing.

"Hey, hey, hey," he whispers. Soft and gentle and coming in from so far away. "You're ok. Guerin is fine, he's going to be fine."

"He's not," she sobs. "He's not."

Alex sighs, a push out of breath. "You didn't make him not fine. He shouldn't have-- shit-- you have no idea do you?"

She shakes her head. "Where--" she cranes her neck, looking for Michael. 

"I can bring him home with me," Alex says, staying in her field of vision, as if he doesn't know what she's looking for. "You shouldn't be alone though."

Maria clutches the cup in her hands. "I was supposed to be responsible," she whispers, mostly to herself.

Alex's mouth goes tight, "yeah. Five minutes on the internet and you would have known that-- right, this isn't the time to talk about that." He rubs his forehead. He looks exhausted for a moment, grey and tired under an unflappable demeanor. 

But now that Maria has her mind back, almost, she can't let it go. "He said it was fine." But she'd known, she should have known.

Alex rolls his eyes like the teenage boy she used to know, "we all say that. Who is it actually true for?"

She shakes her head and closes her eyes, thinking of Michael, golden and handsome and grinning and she can't without thinking of him bleeding on her kitchen table and the strong smell of antiseptic. "Take him," she says. "Just, just take him."

He flinches. Hard, like Michael had when she'd touched him, hit him, made him bleed. 

"He's not a thing," Alex hisses. "You can't just say that. What the hell?"

"You said it. You said you'd take him home with you. Just now. I can't do it, I can't take care of one more thing." She puts her head back between her knees.

Michael is there then, slow and dazed, scooting over and shaking his head. His curls are sweaty and matted, his lashes clumped and wet looking, but the blood of his bitten lip has been washed off his face.

"Alex, it's not her fault," Michael says which doesn't help."It's me, don't be mad. She just shouldn't have called you, I'm fine. I'm fine."

"I just sewed up the gashes on your back with thread." Alex's tone was punctuated with something incredulous.

Maria tries to cover her ears by pressing her knees on them but it doesn't work.

At some point she slumps down where she sits, head against the floor.

Michael has his head in Alex's lap not a few feet away, Alex's hands in his hair, just touching. Maybe she was supposed to be doing that instead of whatever she's doing. Comforting him. She was the one who… who…

Alex looks at her, helpless and grey and his body does something that looks like a shrug. He probably doesn't mind that he's the one who is touching right now. A part of him is probably thrilled. Maria squeezes her eyes shut against the thought and then open.

"You can go," she says. "You don't need to stay."

Alex does the eyeroll thing again. "I'm not leaving you alone like this. In the morning. We'll figure it out in the morning."

And right, it's dark by then, getting on dark.

The floor is a damn uncomfortable place to sleep, but it's not like she's moving anyone to her bed.

*

On Saturday, Maria shows up in the dining hall at Sunset Mesa, her hands twisted in front of her, holding a packet of thick paper.

There are people sitting around a table, mostly a lot older than her, mostly exhausted looking, a little ragged. Some a little too neat, perfect to the point of brittle, keeping up appearances.

A woman in a blue dress with a gentle smile stands up and greets her with outstretched arms. 

"Welcome to our support group. You're Maria, right? I'm Jamie, the facilitator."

"Yeah," she says, forcing a smile and taking the seat she's pointed to. "Thank you for letting me know about this group."

She looks down at the packet, with it's printed promise of support and resource for caregivers.

She can do this. She already is doing it.

*

In a cracked old basement room at the community center downtown, Michael clutches his plastic cup of cheap coffee.

He's sitting in the back, trying not to rock against the metal fold out chair, but not really succeeding. At least he's not the only person here with the jitters from hell.

Everything hurts. Everything hurts. He just wants the pain to feel more real, three dimensional, blossoming in and around him. He just wants the quiet of it, the safe part of knowing he got exactly what he asked for and it was over. He just wants--

And then he remembers the look on Maria's face when she-- yeah. Yeah. He can't go down that road, not with anyone who gives a shit about him.

Alex is onto him now so he probably can't do it with anyone who doesn't either.

Someone is speaking, up front, a cracked looking old man with a scruffy beard. He's probably only forty. "What can I say," the man says. "I had shitty coping skills and I ruined my own life. I gotta do better. No choice but that or dying and I'm not ready to die yet."

Michael forces his way through the layers of chaos and weeping and noise in his brain to listen. Just listen.

Gotta do better. Ok. Alex was waiting for him to be worth it. 

No.

Michael was waiting for himself to be worth it.

*

In a quiet corner office down a winding hall in one of the wings of the VA hospital, Alex looks at his therapist, who looks back at him with upraised eyebrows.

"And when you got the call from Maria, you didn't think there was anyone else you could get. You have a mutual friend who is a doctor."

Alex's mouth twists in annoyance. "Michael wouldn't have wanted Kyle to see him like that. And Maria, she called me. She asked me."

There's a long, careful pause. "Did you think about other options at all when you got the call?"

Alex laughs. "Yeah. I ran them all down in my head. Kyle, our friend Liz, Michael's sister, Isobel. Telling Maria to deal with it herself."

There's another beat of silence, before she says, "and you went anyway."

Alex looks her in the eye and shrugs painfully. "I wanted to go. I wanted to be the one to help them. Help him." He sucks in an audible breath. "Actually. No. I felt like it had to be me. I considered it, but no one else felt like a real possibility. It was both."

She nods back, making a quick note on a pad before looking at him again. "Alex," she says. "Would you be open to exploring why together?"

He closes his eyes and then nods once, firm and decisive. "I'm here, aren't I?"

And he is. If he's going to do this, he's doing it right and he's doing it whole.

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to have a discussion about Guerin's sexuality or who is a better partner for him, the comment section of this fic is not the place. Please, thank you!  
> 
> 
> Come yell at me on Tumblr @ninswhimsy


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